January in the Tziporim class

Silverman’s little birds have been very busy.  The month of January has been spent talking about all things winter and Tu B’Shevat, which is the birthday of trees.  We have had a lot of fun incorporating winter into our class art projects, books and learning.  For example, we have made sparkling snowflakes, snowman and penguin collages, hand printed polar bears, designed patterns on mittens, and finally we used q-tips to make snow murals. To go along with our Winter theme we have read “Snowballs” by Lois Ehlert, “The Snowman Story” by Raymond Briggs, “Sam’s Winter Hat” by Albert Lamb, and “Little Penguin and Friends” by Kath Jewitt.   Class projects integrating our winter theme have been a floor puzzle, sorting and identifying winter clothes for a bear, sorting fruit and vegetables and counting them, and mitten matching.

For Tu B’Shevat we read “Thank You Trees”, by Gail Karwoski and Marilyn Gootman.  For the accompanying project, we made both a winter and a spring tree out of toilet paper tubes and paper plates.  We also had snack by our favorite tree in front, after we sang “Happy Birthday” and did a fun song and dance.

We are also planning on bringing winter into the Tziporim class through science.  We will make snow by crushing ice cubes into ice shavings, observe how it changes, and test it.  We will also explore dirt (dry and wet) through a magnifying glass and discuss our observations.